Unmissable Podcast Resources & Further Reading

Our podcast launch week was a big success! Here’s some of the best resources we’ve found on podcasting (and some of our favorite podcasts).

Last week we launched The Fizzle Show, a talk show for creative entrepreneurs like yourself who want to build a business you care about.

We heard so much great feedback from you all in the iTunes reviews, tweets, and comments on the posts here at The Sparkline. In fact, you made us the #1 business podcast in iTunes!

I’ve said it a bunch in the show and on the previous posts, but I’ll say it again: THANK YOU! We’re thrilled you’re enjoying the podcast. We hope it’s an awesome conversational supplement to the blog posts here.

Below we’ve listed out some of our favorite podcasting resources. These are the ideas, instructions and how-to’s we used to create our show.

Note: if you’re interested in podcasting and building a business you should definitely check out Caleb’s podcasting course (and all the other excellent courses) in our premium online business training.

It’s an exciting time for podcasting. If you have a conversational tendency and a mission to serve an audience, you should definitely consider what a podcast can do for your business.

We hope you enjoy these resources below. We’ve even included a list of some of our favorite podcasts.

Excellent Podcast Resources

Getting Started: from choosing equipment to why you’d want a podcast in the first place, look no further than Pat Flynn and Cliff Ravenscraft. Here’s some of Caleb’s favorite links for starters.

• Smart Passive Income Podcast 064 : Podcasting for More Exposure, Leads and Money (My SMMW13 Presentation!) — an excellent overview of why and how to podcast.
• Cliff Ravencraft’s How To Podcast — Cliff covers the gamut here including how to create a podcast in under 20min.
• How to Start a Podcast – Pat’s Complete Step-By-Step Podcasting Tutorial — this is a huge post from Pat with basically everything you’d need to know broken up in a bunch of helpful videos.

Where’s Podcasting Going: podcasting is both old and new. It’s as old as oration or education. It’s as new as the combo of iPods and RSS technology.

In learning more about the media (and becoming an avid fan of certain podcasts) I’ve become more than just intrigued about the opportunities in podcasting.

Here’s some of my favorite links for learning more about where podcasting as a medium is going.

• NextMarket – A Podumentary: A podcast about the podcast (aka The Podcast Project) — this is the first of several podcasts I recommend from Michael Wolf. He’s done a great job finding and interviewing the biggest names in podcasting (and podcast networks). I highly recommend this podcast for anyone in “new” media.
• The Business of Podcasting Interviews — check out the interviews with Jeff Ulrich, Leo Laporte and Rob Walch to get more insights on the business side of things.
• Some Overviews from big Networks — check out the interviews with Adam Carolla and Dan Benjamin for some great perspective on the realities of running a network of podcasts.
• Some of the Best Minds in Making Great Content — Ira Glass, Stephen Dubner and Jesse Thorn have all been making excellent content (for a long time). Getting these glimpses into the learnings and perspective of these folks was invaluable for me. Jesse’s interview in particular inspired me to re-jigger how I was looking at things.

Killer Podcast Tools

• Huffduffer — go there, sign up, and drag the bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar. The next time you visit a page with an interesting audio recording, press the bookmarklet to “huffduff” it… the audio will show up in a podcast feed you can subscribe to! This has been amazing for me to listen to audio I find all around the web. Here’s my feed for an example of the weird stuff I really like.
• Instacast — this is my preferred podcast app. Designed well, easy to find and subscribe, make a playlist of all your un-listened to episodes, skip forward two minutes, skip back 30sec, etc. Highly recommended. (though Apple’s free Podcasts app ain’t all bad).
• Our Gear Setup — (this is where I get a bit nerdy, feel free to fast forward) we’re using the Focusrite Scarlett USB Audio i/o which I switched to because my big ol’ Motu 828 was too big to lug to Corbett’s house and back. The preamps sounds great. Corbett and I are on Sure SM57’s and Caleb’s on a PR40 cuz he’s a big boy. I’m using Apple’s Logic Pro with Alloy2 on tracks for EQ and compression (the transient filter thingy helps with the plosives as well) and Ozone5 for mastering.

Our Favorite Podcasts

Chase’s Favorite:

• WTF with Marc Maron Podcast — I love comedy and I really love hearing how comedians got started. That’s why I got started with this one. But now I mostly listen because I enjoy how Maron looks at the world.
• 5by5 | Back to Work — Merlin Mann is a hero of mine. I know people used to look up to astronauts and presidents and stuff, but the way Merlin has helped me think better about doing my goodest work has landed him firmly in a “hero” slot for me. If you’ve never geeked out about GTD (or haven’t re-visited it in a while) I highly recommend episodes 95 through 99 where the lads re-hash productivity legends and myths in fresh ways.
• Above & Beyond : Group Therapy Radio — this is mostly all I listen to when I work. 2 hours of my favorite kind of melodic EDM (electronic dance music). I judge myself for this. You can judge me too. But give it a try… you’ll likely become a reluctant superfan, just like I am.

Corbett’s Favorites:

• This American Life — There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always.
• Radiolab — a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. It’s incredible.
• Here’s The Thing: – WNYC — Alec Baldwin gives the listener unique entrée into the lives of artists, policy makers and performers.

Caleb’s Favorites:

• Accidental Creative: Productivity for creative pros, better ideas for creative teams — addresses how to thrive in the create-on-demand world by instilling practical, everyday practices that help you stay prolific, brilliant and healthy in your life and work.
• Smart Passive Income Podcast — Pat Flynn from The Smart Passive Income Blog reveals all of his online business and blogging strategies, income sources and killer marketing tips and tricks so you can be ahead of the curve with your online business or blog.
• Revision3 > Film Riot — a hybrid of sketch comedy, tutorial, reality TV and a whole lot of nonsense, with the ultimate goal of teaching the art of independent filmmaking.

Do You Have A Favorite Podcast?

Have any favorites you want to tell us about? Come across any good podcasting resources? Let us know just below in the comments.

And thanks again for making The Fizzle Show the #1 business podcast during the launch week last week. You are awesome.